Vodka

Folks of my vintage (and older), and similar failings have fond memories of things Russian. Thanks to the USSR, we binged on well-bound scientific books with quality content. But, then the Berlin wall came crashing down on Soviet toes, and what squirming life remained (in them toes) was flattened by tanks on the Red Square. Some people believe that the real damage to the remaining cartilageneous structure was due to Boris Yeltsin's weighty presence on top of the tanks.

Be that as may, the new bosses at Kremlin shut shop on MIR publishers, and my kind were left with dusty, hard-bound memories. Worse, people are growing up with the mistaken belief that the USSR was all bad, and the the USA all good. Think again pinheads. A hard-bound, mundane brick printed in New Jersey costs upward of 50 US Dollars. If I let on what a MIR-bound ecstasy cost, the pinheads would probably have a stroke. So, I will tell them. Less than a dollar. Yes, I know that this may have been at the cost of frozen million in a Siberian camp, but, hey, at least being slave-driven kept them warm. And imagine the number of excuses for not bathing. Or changing your underwear. No, I am very well where I am, thank you.

Anyway, I am sitting in here today behind a century old desk, and the IIT firewall, thinking what good is Russia to the World today. Is there any point in learning the language? No cold war, so little point in playing CIA and learning cyrillics. Is there any future in being a Russophile?

And then it hits me. If not for the Russian language, there would not be pages on the internet written in cyrillics - symbols that can fool the overbearing NetNanny enforced on us by the moral police at the computer centre. But, for .RU pages how would a red-blooded IITian access skimpily outfitted long legs. Ah, but for the Russians... may they abide.

I Walk the line

I must apologise for this long absence. For failing to wish you lot a Happy New Year (in case your calendar, or your outlook, is Georgian). I hope you stood in line on a showery 31st and awaited my greetings.

I too stood in a line on the 31st. A line for railway tickets. In front of me were many many men. And one specimen. He stood there shifting from a leg to another. Like a panther about to pounce. I imagined his next move. Would it involve a fearful roar and the teller's neck?

He responded by reaching back and scratching his posterior. Lazily. Lovingly. Longingly.

This was mightily interesting.

He smelt his fingers, shook his head, and moved the expeditionary finger party onto, and into, his right ear. The results, though yellow, were dissapointing, but fool's gold. So he switched to an old favourite; the nose. He dug deep, he dug for gold. For muck untold.

In time, that mine played out, and he stood there rocking back and forth. Undecided, dangerous, and armed to the teeth. With a toothpick, cunningly hidden behind the left ear. So, he picked his teeth. Clean. And then, replaced his weapon. But this time behind the right ear.

You can't be too careful about cleanliness.

I wondered what, in his single-minded pursuit of excellence in male grooming, was he going to grab next. Guess?

Like Johnny Cash, I too had walked the line. And, I gave exact change at the counter.